MANILA - Philippine President Gloria Arroyo has asked Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad for help in regulating the massive repatriation of illegal Filipino workers in Sabah, officials said Tuesday.

Arroyo made the request in a meeting with a Malaysian delegation led by Bernard Giluk Dompok, minister in Mahathir's department, officials said.

Press Undersecretary Roberto Capco remarked that during the meeting, Arroyo ( photo ) said her government was "hoping there would be humane treatment of Filipinos being deported from Sabah," even as she expressed her concern about the bulk deportations Filipinos.

Large numbers of Filipinos who were living in Malaysia have been deported in recent weeks after Kuala Lumpur imposed tough laws where anyone found guilty of illegal entry or harboring illegal immigrants faced a mandatory six months in jail and up to six strokes of the cane.

The Malaysian government has denied allegations that Filipinos were being abused as they are being deported on ships that carry them across the two countries' martime border to the southern Philippines.

Labor Secretary Patricia Santo Tomas said after the meeting that "we're trying to ask that the deportees at least come home in batches of about 200 so it would be easier to document them and to take care of their requirements".

She said that Filipinos were coming home in batches of as many as 1,000, making it hard to document them and check their identities.

"What we're trying to do is make this a little more manageable so that women and children are not unduly prejudiced because of so many people being put together in one ship," Santo Tomas said.

Deadline extended

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Tony Rodriguez said that since February about 64,000 Filipinos had left Malaysia's Sabah state and that an estimated 4,000 Filipinos were still waiting to be deported.

He said the Malaysian government had agreed to a Philippine request to extend the deadline for illegal Filipinos to voluntarily leave Sabah to Aug 24.

Santo Tomas said both countries had reached a consensus for possibly signing an agreement that would allow Filipinos to legally work in the construction, plantation and manufacturing sectors in Malaysia.

"Hopefully, before the end of this month, such an agreement will be signed between us and the Malaysian authorities," she said without elaborating. AFP